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When Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo faced each other in LaLiga like two wildebeests in the Serengeti, one of the things that the Real Madrid player disliked the most was that, although he was always at the center of the debate about who was the best now, when the the discussion turned to who was the greatest of all time, he was not included.
Messi, 35, has reminded us at this World Cup, where he scored an astonishing third goal, why it belongs in a different storyline, and now he’s one game away from settling it once and for all.
If he wins the World Cup it will be 13 years after he won the 2009 Champions League final with that header that stunned and defeated Edwin van der Sar.
Debate continues over whether Lionel Messi (left) or Cristiano Ronaldo (right) is the GOAT
The biggest debate of all time has been raging for years between them (pictured in 2008)
Sportsmail’s Pete Jenson saw them both hundreds of times during their LaLiga spells.
It’s the longevity of brilliance that Ronaldo, or anyone else, really can’t match.
I saw them both in the same league from 2009 to 2018 and often there was hardly anything between them.
With one invariably in prime time on Saturday nights and the other in prime time on Sunday nights, the weekends became a never-ending cycle of “anything you can do, I can do better.” . If one scored twice on Saturday, the other got a hat-trick on Sunday.
When they coincided in ‘classics’ there were games in which Ronaldo had to watch with disgust how Messi stole the limelight. In the first leg of the Champions League semi-final in 2010, he was enraged by José Mourinho’s negative tactics, a game plan that worked for an hour before Pepe was sent off and Messi scored twice before winning the European Cup what a season.
Messi’s stock is through the roof after he played a starring role in leading Argentina to a World Cup final.
The couple’s careers have meshed together, with both winning many Ballon d’Or awards.
On other occasions Ronaldo had the last laugh. His towering header against the post in extra time in the 2010 Copa del Rey final from an Ángel Di María cross left Madrid with their first Spanish Cup in 18 years and Messi’s head bowed in defeat.
There were things that Ronaldo did better than Messi. You would always want him, not Messi, at the far post in the last few minutes if your team needed a goal. And if your life depended on a penalty kick being scored, you’d want Ronaldo to step up and not Messi, for all that so far only one has been missed in Qatar.
But Messi was able to make a team play better and that’s a quality that never really showed in Ronaldo. In this World Cup -the last one for both- we have seen it again.
Perhaps it is a product of Messi’s upbringing at Barcelona. Mourinho has often pointed out that Ronaldo had it harder, always coming to a new league and a new team having to make a name for himself, while Messi grew up in the same club from the age of 13 and played the same way for almost 20 years. years.
Messi’s brilliance has lasted for so long that not even Ronaldo (left) can match him
But in Qatar he has done it with Argentina. The way in which he has made Alexis Mac Allister, Julio Álvarez and Enzo Fernández, children who grew up idolizing him, find another level with him has been the difference between a functioning orchestra and Messi as a one-man band on his tour of farewell.
The team ticks to the beat of Messi’s metronome as he gives it to and takes it back from the youngsters around him. Until, of course, it’s time to blast 40 yards on his own to create a goal.
Contrast all that with Ronaldo in this tournament. It doesn’t make sense that Rafael Leao, Goncalo Ramos or Joao Félix admire him in the same way, let alone Bruno Fernández.
Insisting on remaining in the spotlight for club and country, Ronaldo has been sidelined by both, while everything continues to revolve around Messi for Argentina.
Ronaldo is right about the injustice of not being included in that debate about who is the best of all time because his own stamina also goes well beyond many of the other title contenders.
Ronaldo (left) has felt an injustice when his name has been kept out of the all-time debate.
He came to life with Manchester United in the 2006-07 season and it was 10 years later that he won the Eurocup.
He then top-scored in the same competition in 2020 and was still scoring nearly a goal a game at Juventus the following season. He could argue that he has dominated for the same length of time as Messi, but only the Argentine can say that his 13 years are reserved for a Champions League and a World Cup, if he wins it on Sunday.
Wayne Rooney tweeted “Nothing has changed” after Messi’s semi-final appearance on Tuesday night. He was on top of a retweet of something he said in 2012: ‘Messi is a joke. For me, the best of all.
These players know how difficult it is to maintain brilliance. It’s hard enough to turn a run of positive performances into a good season. To do it for a decade in the most competitive club competition and at the same time win international tournaments is amazing.
And winning a Champions League and then a World Cup 13 years later would be the greatest feat in football.